Colour foods

[GaryE]

I used to buy a colour food rich in astaxanthin algae from a bulk supplier, and I found it really intensified reds. It was great stuff with a good nutritional profile, but I am not into buying food by the pound anymore. I use so little prepared food that it would go stale here.
What colour foods have people had success with? I would want one with astaxanthin, as that was the key. I'm in a very small market now where I can't just go and read canisters for their breakdown - the local stores tend to sell one or two brands only. I'm looking for your experience before I have to buy what I decide on online, unseen.

 

[Back in the fold]

Color enhancing foods ? They’re a myth. I think they’re one of those deals like memory enhancing supplements or fat burning stuff they try to sell to gullible people who want a magic fix . Feed your fish their natural diet and they will respond the way nature intended. I have one male Betta who gets nothing but live fruit flies and he is an outstanding specimen.

 

[GaryE]

When I fed astaxanthin to my rainbows, the reds would intensify. I bought it as a powder once, and mixed it into my homemade fishfood recipes, and saw good results. It only worked on reds, orange and yellows though. That would be why your betta wouldn't respond.
I've used it for 15 years and seen good things. I'd like to see them again. Diet influences colour.
I haven't made my own food (my freezer is quite far from my fishroom, in another building) and I'm hunting for a short cut.
My rainbows get fruit flies, white worms, and in season mosquitoes, and daphnia. They also get a strong veggie component, and when I travel, a few nets of duckweed which they'll devour when times are lean. I want that little extra oomph before I sell them. Their colour's good, but. I can see where magic thinking could come in - dye it red and people will expect it to transfer. Adding things like paprika did nothing here. I played with the usual useless fish lore. But this dark brown algae did seem to stimulate colours.

 

[Ichthys]

I’ve never really felt the need for colour foods. I’ve always used Tetra Min, which contains a ‘colour food’ (Tetra Ruby, the red flake). Maybe that’s why?
It would be nice to find out what makes fish yellow, a colour that so often disappears once they’re caught, and never comes back the same.

 

[GaryE]

Yellow is a mystery. I have wondered whether it was diet or sunlight. Or both. My Corydoras CW 123 eat well, but the yellow these wild caughts had is faint. I keep thinking it's coming back, and it doesn't. That's partly why I wanted to try an astaxanthin food. I wanted to see if maybe something along that line in their diet was an issue I could solve. I've noticed that yellow fish tend to come from the same habitats - they group together. Lighting? Camouflage? Diet? It's a good question.
My killies lose no yellows, but they're insect eaters. The plant eating omnivore/detritivore species are the ones where yellow seems to go.

The colour thing in tetra min is cantaxanthin, which can apparently give us a nice golden glow if we eat it an unhealthy amount of it. Maybe I'll down a can of tetra min before I go the beach... it should work in fish. It's also mixed with astaxanthin to increase colour in farmed salmon. I'll get some tetra min colour for the first time since I was a teenager, and see what happens while I search for astaxanthin foods as well.

I have to confess - I love the smell of tetra min. It takes me back to my childhood, when I always had my 3 canisters - staple, growth and veggie beside my tanks.

 

[gwand]

Yellow is a mystery. I have wondered whether it was diet or sunlight. Or both. My Corydoras CW 123 eat well, but the yellow these wild caughts had is faint. I keep thinking it's coming back, and it doesn't. That's partly why I wanted to try an astaxanthin food. I wanted to see if maybe something along that line in their diet was an issue I could solve. I've noticed that yellow fish tend to come from the same habitats - they group together. Lighting? Camouflage? Diet? It's a good question.
My killies lose no yellows, but they're insect eaters. The plant eating omnivore/detritivore species are the ones where yellow seems to go.

The colour thing in tetra min is cantaxanthin, which can apparently give us a nice golden glow if we eat it an unhealthy amount of it. Maybe I'll down a can of tetra min before I go the beach... it should work in fish. It's also mixed with astaxanthin to increase colour in farmed salmon. I'll get some tetra min colour for the first time since I was a teenager, and see what happens while I search for astaxanthin foods as well.

I have to confess - I love the smell of tetra min. It takes me back to my childhood, when I always had my 3 canisters - staple, growth and veggie beside my tanks.

I have a vegan friend who turned a mild orange shade from over doing it with drinking way too much carrot juice.

 

[GaryE]

I have a vegan friend who turned a mild orange shade from over doing it with drinking way too much carrot juice.

The poor person - trying to be so healthy and looking like a bad spray tan.

My homemade foods would include baby food carrots, astaxanthin, spirulina, pureed peas, shrimp and fish. Maybe I should just get more active and make some more. I may try substituting shrimp with soldier fly larvae they sell to feed chickens. I could run the dried larvae through an old coffee grinder and make my own colour food.

 

[Uberhoust]

I have a vegan friend who turned a mild orange shade from over doing it with drinking way too much carrot juice.

That can also cause vitamin A poisoning.

 

[Archerfish]

I have to confess - I love the smell of tetra min. It takes me back to my childhood, when I always had my 3 canisters - staple, growth and veggie beside my tanks.

Oh, the memories of the three canisters and then Tetra came out with one canister with a twist top dispensing all three! Gary, remember when fluorescent lighting hit the market? Way back then, my LFS switched to fluorescent lighting and black gravel and his sales went through the roof. Same fish but differently displayed. I like naturally enhancing coloration and found this link to be very helpful: https://allnaturalpetcare.com/blog/2013/12/28/naturally-enhance-color-aquarium-fish/

 

[Colin_T]

If you want to enhance red or blue (mainly red) use black or red grapes, and blueberries, and purple carrots.

If you want to enhance yellow or orange, add orange squash and orange carrots, and paprika can enhance yellow, orange and red.

Use a juicer and soak frozen foods in the juice for a few minutes before feeding to the fish. If the fish eat the plant matter, then feed them that too.

 

[GaryE]

It's easier to use the algaes rather than fruit or berries, which puts sugars in. The old guys used to use mild paprika. I tried it in a couple of mixes and saw nothing for it.

 

[gilpi]

I have a vegan friend who turned a mild orange shade from over doing it with drinking way too much carrot juice.

I can testify to that. I love carrot juice but have to be mindful on how much of it to drink.